12 Answers
12

I do recognise the alternative netizen, but for me at least that implies much about a person's attitudes to, and active participation in, the emerging global society embodied in the Internet.

My 84-year-old mother, for example, is online for many hours every day playing "solo" online games. She almost never uses the Net for interactive communication in any form (maybe 3 emails a year), so whilst I would call her a nethead, I would not call her a netizen.

@Kheldar: She got hooked on solo computer Scrabble when I gave her my old Sinclair Spectrum 20 years ago. Which was weird, because I'd only ever run that game once, several years before. The program took first go, and by wild fluke it started with the word FUCK. But I assumed it was some kind of joke, so I put it away and never looked at it again. She found it in the bag of game cassettes I gave her when I got a "real PC", loaded it up, and never looked back. But she doesn't like interacting with anyone - especially people she doesn't know - on the Net. She'd be scared of you! :)
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FumbleFingersAug 25 '11 at 20:19

For example Netizen: A user of the Internet, esp. a habitual or avid one. [NOAD]

If you want some slang you can say: Net abuser: A person who is addicted to the internet. They use it every chance they get. The person googles/searches random information. EX: entertainment, world events, medical conditions.
The person uses their blackberry/iphone in class to do assignments, play games.

EDIT: I found other slang terms. One is net rat: A net rat is someone who spends all their time on the internet because they have nothing better to do.

And another one is kind of vulgar and it's net fu**er, which means: A person who spends days on the internet at a time. usually late at night or very early in the morning. [These 3 were taken from UrbanDictionary.com]

Another possible term, depending on the connotation you want, could be net junkie: someone who is addicted to using the internet, who cannot stay away from it for extended periods without visible anxiety and frustration, whose every action is centered around it, etc.

If someone spends 8 hours a day on the internet because it's their job to monitor and moderate online forums, for example, they could be a netizen as mentioned by others. If they then go home and spend 8 more hours on the internet because they don't have any non-internet-based hobbies, they are almost certainly a net junkie.

Nice explanation :) good answer :) I can use that word net junkie
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AbidAug 26 '11 at 5:13

net junkie is the only good answer here. (well, also net rat and net fucker.) It's incredibly confusing that people are offering answers that just mean "people who does use, who understand and use, the internet".
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Joe BlowJul 31 '14 at 17:09

We used to simply say a person was "connected." Also, an entire magazine was designed and published to serve the needs of a particular class of "cybernetic junkie," or "cyberjunkie," who thought of themselves as more-or-less permanently "Wired." Although these terms perhaps originated in the old BBS forum and Usenet days, and may have somewhat preceded the Internet, there was some temporal overlap and they continue to have some usage today.

Most people to whom such terms, and those in the other answers here, are ascribed do not find the terms, themselves offensive but do strenuously object to the usually strongly negative connotations that often accompany their application!

The analogy of the digital native was also used by Josh Spear and
Aaron Dignan (Spear's business partner in the Manhattan-based agency
Undercurrent) who talked about people who were "born digital", first
appearing in a series of presentations given by Josh Spear in 2007

Don't think Digital Native fits. You can be disconnected from Internet most of the time and still be capable of operating social websites (FB etc), or even operating their server software...
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KheldarAug 25 '11 at 21:07

Nerd and Geek, as far as I know, are not synonyms actually...
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AlenannoAug 25 '11 at 14:24

3

I don't mind being called a geek.. but nerd? There'd better be nothing brittle nearby if someone calls me this. Including skulls :) And neither of them implies being addicted to the Internet.
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PhilotoAug 25 '11 at 14:40

4

I'm proud to be called a nerd.. but geek? There'd better be nothing pointy nearby if someone calls me this. Including pens :) And neither of them implies being addicted to the Internet.
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Travis ChristianAug 25 '11 at 16:02

1

They both imply being addicted to the Internet. However, being addicted to the Internet implies neither.
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Lightness Races in OrbitAug 25 '11 at 16:44

2

Being a Geek doesn't imply Internet connectivity. I know akkadian civilization geeks that spend their year digging hot dirt in countries you'd never set foot in with sandy deserts and scorpions instead of yahoo and gizmodo :D
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KheldarAug 25 '11 at 19:34